November 18, 2012

BREAKING: The president knew the truth about Benghazi

In a blockbuster report, John Solomon, the former Associated Press and Post reporter, has ferreted out the president’s daily brief that informed him within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attack that the Benghazi attack was a jihadist operation.

Citing officials directly familiar with the information, Solomon writes in the Washington Guardian that Obama and other administration officials were told that “that the attack was likely carried out by local militia and other armed extremists sympathetic to al-Qaida in the region.”

The details from the CIA and Pentagon assessments of the killing of Ambassador Chris [Stevens] were far more specific, more detailed and more current than the unclassified talking points that UN Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used five days after the attack to suggest to Americans that an unruly mob angry over an anti-Islamic video was to blame, officials said.

Most of the details affirming al-Qaida links were edited or excluded from the unclassified talking points used by Rice in appearances on news programs the weekend after the attack, officials confirmed Friday. Multiple agencies were involved in excising information, doing so because it revealed sources and methods, dealt with classified intercepts or involved information that was not yet fully confirmed, the officials said.

Solomon cautions that there were bits of evidence pointing to a spontaneous attack but, as Eli Lake of the Daily Beast and others have reported, he writes: “Among the early evidence cited in the briefings to the president and other senior officials were intercepts showing some of the participants were known members or supporters of Ansar al-Sharia — the al-Qaida-sympathizing militia in Libya — and the AQIM, which is a direct affiliate of al-Qaida in northern Africa, the officials said.”

How could the president and his senior staff then have allowed (or rather, sent) Rice to go out to tell an entirely different tale to the American people on Sept. 16 on five TV shows?

This report indicates that the president certainly knew that Benghazi wasn’t a rogue movie review gone bad. He had information that plainly spelled out what was later confirmed by additional intelligence. If this information was too confidential to share with the public, at the very least the president and others should not have mislead voters.

This is a full-blown scandal, and in light of this information, the press corps’s slothful indifference to uncovering the truth at Wednesday’s news conference with Obama is all the more shocking. It is time for the president to come clean. The scandal has now enveloped the Oval Office and will define his second term, if not resolved satisfactorily.

The irony of this is that Rice may well have been used as a patsy, unaware that she was sent out to spin a misleading tale. My colleagueDana Milbank recounts Rice’s long-standing inability to get along with others and to be circumspect in her pronouncements:

It’s true that, in her much-criticized TV performance, she was reciting talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies. But that’s the trouble. Rice stuck with her points even though they had been contradicted by the president of the Libyan National Assembly, who, on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ just before Rice, said there was “no doubt” that the attack on Americans in Benghazi “was preplanned.” Rice rebutted the Libyan official, arguing — falsely, it turned out — that there was no evidence of such planning. .?.?. Obama can do better at State than Susan Rice.

Frankly the same could be said of many national security positions at this point. The American people made their choice in November on the president, but it now appears they were duped regarding the real facts concerning Benghazi. What are we going to do about that?

6 Comments to BREAKING: The president knew the truth about Benghazi

I read that it was an arranged hostage taking with one al quaeda faction that was usurped by another group of jihadists. that the ambassador was meant to be taken hostage and then rescued by seals. Then when it went bad because the seals did not stand down and then it was all a cover up of the deal. Perhaps those who attacked the annex afterwards thought stevens had been rescued and taken there. I also read that the petraeus/allen/broadwell/kelley scandal is a red herring designed to take attention from benghazi and election fraud.

The President assumes that everyone was as naive he is, so Obama lied thinking that you all was as stupid as he is. I guess that he guessed wrong. No matter, you all voted for him anyway. 70% of eligible Jewish voters voted for this liar. You all received what you bargained for.

Obama’s over the top defense of Susan Rice in his post election press conference reminded me why I detest the man so much.He KNEW the attack on the Benghazi compound was a terrorist attack 72hrs after the event—yet HE sent her out to blame the video.If he didn’t think Rice had “anything to do with Bengazi” then why was she sent out to five different discussion shows to LIE about it? If Obama is worried about Rice’s reputation “being besmirched”(as if it’s the 1940’s & Rice can’t defend herself without a man behind her) then why didn’t HE go out & tell the bloody truth in the first place? Obama needs to be impeached.Nobody died in Watergate & this is much, much worse than that.